TipAdept Dot Com

Anyone who still doubts there is a bright future for technologies that create hybrid, online/offline applications need only consider Sun's JavaFX announcement at JavaOne this week. The Sun Microsystems (Nasdaq:JAVA) event demonstrates that JavaFX, which was announced last year, is closing in on, or at least gunning for Adobe's AIR and Microsoft's Silverlight, as a developer's tool for producing new applications.

But while AIR and Silverlight are oriented toward PCs, Sun hopes to leverage Java's broad adoption in mobile and embedded systems.

"We're focused on connecting business systems with people," Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz said. "If you're a bank, you want to reach customers on set-top boxes, car navigation systems, mobile phones. You want to reach them with your business systems to update them with their savings (account details) or credit-card bill. What's happening on the Internet today is, all these systems are being connected to one another."

Java runs on 2.2 billion mobile devices and the majority of PCs.

Return of the Applet

But in a presentation at JavaOne, Rich Green, Sun's executive vice president for software, stuck to a desktop demo. He showed a JavaFX application sporting Twitter and Flickr feeds running in Facebook. He then dragged the application out of the Web browser and onto the desktop. The same app also runs Java-enabled phones, thanks to a mobile version called JavaFX Mobile.

One of the JavaFX sessions was called the "return of the Applet," attendee Michael Levin noted on his blog. "Detachable applets can live outside the browser. This is a cool technology. Basically, you can drag an applet from your browser onto your desktop and leave it there, even after the browser is closed. This reminds me of widgets and gadgets. It's yet another move in a Web-centric direction."

A key part of making JavaFX ready for prime time is JavaFX Script,...